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I think those are two extremes, there is alot of ground between the two.

--------------------1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..."
2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..."
3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."

indeed, but i think that most fall on either side. on this board (and everywhere else), we've got mainly two types of political thought.

one holds that the government, like anyone else, may only use force defensively. it says that the only legitimate role of the state is to keep the peace and nothing more.

the other believes that the government should solve the problems of society whenever force may appear to facilitate doing so. because there are many different ideas about what 'problems' the state should solve (everything from 'obscenity' and homosexuality to poverty and AIDS), there are all kinds of collectivists, but most of ours are socialists.

there are positions in between, but people do generally fall more to one side or the other.

I for one think that to achieve the greatest general good (liberty, safety, prosperity) you have to balance liberalism and socialism.

The government should regulate some things or society can go to crap; liberty can be lost by exploitation and fear, citizens can have shitty lives because the government does too little to protect them, but on the other hand I think the government must respect individual liberties and freedoms and not try to force collectivist policies on the people. Government should not be soley responsible for society, though it should help out when it can. Most decisions should be up to the people unless they endanger others or themselves. (Notice I said 'endanger' and not harm. Under libertarian philosophy the government only has jurisdiction over crimes that have taken place, rather than potential ones.)

That's why I am this board's only centrist/conservative.

--------------------1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..."
2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..."
3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."

Most socialists I've met tend to be pretty libertarian on social issues, with a few exceptions like gun control. To find people who are authoritarian on both personal and economic issues, I think you'd have to start looking at people like communists and fascists.

That would be interesting, considering we both have the Tao and Washington State in our profiles.

--------------------1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..."
2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..."
3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."

It seems like this issue comes up a lot. I'm very libertarian on personal issues and pretty socialist on economic ones.

this would make you a socialist; like most of the socialists here, one who would permit people to exercise their rights as long as they weren't employing themselves in a productive manner or exchanging goods and\or services, but a socialist nonetheless.

I remember we had a discussion a while back about what a neocon is, and I was just thinking that a neocon is sort of like the opposite of a socialist: authoritarian on personal issues, while libertarian on economic ones.

it looks to me like what makes one a 'neocon' is more about foreign policy than domestic. insofar as they require individuals to further their neocon fantasies, through stuff like higher 'defense' spending and possible military draft, they too are collectivists.

However, I am not a libertarian. I believe there are situations where the government should interfere in the economy. Specifically, I believe that it is necessary to regulate the commons, such as the electromagnetic spectrum and the environment. Natural monopolies require regulation as well, and anti-trust actions are an important role of government. The government has more roles I consider valid than I will list here. So, I do have strong socialist tendencies.

However, I think the government does way too much. I oppose subsidies and tariffs except as a tool of foreign policy, I think the tax code should be simplified (though I support progressive taxes), I oppose the drug war, oppose the DMCA, believe copyright should be weakened and the patent system overhauled. So, libertarian.